Global Warming: I Have Questions

Question: What happens when a skeptic like myself questions the global warming theory in a facebook group that considers themselves skeptics?

Answer: I get labeled a conspiracist, conspiratard, sheeptard, right-winger, troll, denialist and all kinds of other interesting things. It was also suggested that i do certain things to myself and go away.

As Mr. Spock would say, “Fascinating, Jim.”
I have always had issues with the question, “Do you believe in global warming?”, because it’s really two questions:

Has the earth warmed (over some time frame)?

Are humans responsible?

Because simply answering “yes” to the above question can be misunderstood to mean you agree warming has occurred AND that humans are primarily responsible, i always split the issue:

I do agree there has been some warming over the last 100 years, BUT

I’m not convinced humans are the main cause. I’m inclined to think our climate is primarily driven by the same natural forces that have driven our climate since the earth was created 4.5 billion years ago – and humans are a small part of that natural cycle.

It’s this position that gets people all worked up. But why do i feel this way? Because i have questions.
What period of time are global warming believers referring to when they use phrases like, “the warmest ‘on record'”,“since records have been kept” or “since measurements began”?

Al Gore is notorious for using these kinds of references to a mystery time frame. When he says “this is the hottest year ‘since measurements began'”, am i the only one wondering when “the measurements began”? After all, if the measurements began at 5 o’clock this morning, then by noon it really would be the warmest since measurements began, wouldn’t it?

Here is Al Gore from 1997 using these types of vague references to a mysterious period of time:

The IPCC[1] (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) used similar language in their 1990 Scientific Assessment report when they wrote, “the five warmest years on record have been in the 1980s.[2]”

Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? It almost sounds like they’re saying, “the five warmest years since the beginning of timehave been in the 1980s,” or “the five warmest years EVERhave been in the 1980s,” doesn’t it?

The truth is, when the IPCC, Al Gore and the other global warming theorists compare temperatures to “the record” (i.e. “The warmest on record“) they are actually referring to the last 150 years of temperature data.

Allow me to explain.

Here are the temperatures from the last 1,000 years:

With current temperatures located on the far right of the graph and the dotted line representing temperature conditions near the beginning of the twentieth century[3], you should notice something right off the bat.

Beginning about 950 AD and continuing for about 400 years until almost 1350 AD there is a period of time when the temperatures were warmer than they are today. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – 1990), this warmer period is referred to as the “Medieval Warm Period.”

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was warmer than any temperatures seen today, so global warming theorists must use a period of time after the Medieval Warm Period to make claims of record breaking temperatures.

Here is that period of time referred to as “the record”[4] by global warming theorists when they say “… on ‘the record'”:

The above graph is “the record” as depicted in the 1990 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Scientific Assessment Report. It only goes back approximately 150 years to the year 1860.

From the same IPCC report: “The instrumental record of surface temperature is fragmentary until the mid-nineteenth century, after which it slowly improves[5] . . . ” and it “shows current estimates of … surface temperature over land and ocean since 1860.[6][7]” [all emphasis mine]

So when the IPCC[8] and other global warming theorists say, “the warmest temperatures on record,” what they’re really saying is, “the warmest temperatures since 1860!”

Now look again at the 1,000 year temperature graph, this time with “the record” put in perspective:

Click image for larger view

It becomes clear why global warming theorists say “the warmest temperatures on record” -­ because if they were honest and said “the warmest temperatures since 1860,”­ the deception would become as painfully obvious as it is above.

What else do you notice? Notice where “the record” begins on the 1,000 year timeline. It begins at the end of a period in history called the “Little Ice Age.” The Little Ice Age (LIA) is a 500 year period of cooling that occurred from about 1350 to approximately 1850[9].
I’m sure it’s just pure happenstance that the purveyors of global warming use the end of an ice age as their temperature comparison starting point. Sort of like wanting to convince your friends you’re a gambling guru by bragging about how you won $3,000 on your last day in Las Vegas while conveniently forgetting to mention how you lost $5,000 on your first day in Vegas. You’re the man (until your friends learn the inconvenient truth)!

For more perspective let’s go back some more. Here is 8,000 years of temperatures:

Click image for larger view

Notice how almost all of the last 8,000 years was warmer than today. In fact, I would say maybe we should be concerned that present day temperatures are too cool! Today’s temperatures are but a blip on this bigger picture. Makes one wonder how the global warming theorists get away with their verbal “on the record” slight of hand.

I think you get the idea of where I’m going with my thinking. Let me cut to the chase and show you the largest infographic i’ve ever made. Let’s go back 600 million years. I’ve overlayed all the other timelines hoping to add some perspective.

Click image for larger view

Things to note:

The 50,000 year timeline was so insignificant on the 600 million year timeline that it couldn’t be visually represented – it literally didn’t register a width large enough to be depicted on a computer monitor (1/50 of a pixel in width).

Notice the lack of correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. This flies in the face of the global warming theorists telling us CO2 drives temperature.

In the last 600 million years, there is only ONE time period – 315 million years to approximately 270 million years – when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today. Think about it – out of the last 600 million years, 555 million of those years had CO2 and temperature levels higher than today. In other words 92.5% of the last 600 million years had higher CO2 and temperature levels than today.

Some global warming theorists tell us if CO2 levels continue to rise, temperatures will continue to rise and if temperatures continue to rise, CO2 levels will continue to rise. We’re warned this could cause CO2 and temperatures to spiral out of control, which would lead to the obliteration of earth.Yet, look at the above graph at the 550 million year mark. CO2 levels were at 7,000 ppm (parts per million) – more than 17 times higher than today’s CO2 levels (400 ppm). Yet, CO2 and temperatures didn’t spiral out of control. No apocalypse.

Given all this historic data, how could people such as John Holdren tell us climate changes over the last 150 years (“the record”) cannot be explained by natural causes?

From October 6, 1997 at the White House Conference on Global Climate Change:

Let me get this straight – for 599,999,850 years, the earth’s higher temperatures (than today) and higher CO2 levels (than today) were all naturally driven (not manmade), but the last 150 years are NOT explainable by ANY of those same natural causes from the first 599,999,850 years?

I’ve debated this point with global warming believers.They respond with reams of “scientific” papers from scientific people to back up their scientific belief that whatever the natural causes were for the first 599,999,850 years of climate change, those same natural causes don’t apply to today’s climate change. Today’s climate change – unlike the climate change in those hundreds of millions of years before 1860 – is not natural. It’s all about the science, you damn denier.

But i’m assured that today’s scientists have a firm grasp on the science behind the weather.
Which segues perfectly into my next question . . .
Why have all those climate models by all those climate “scientists” been so wrong about all those future warming projections?

You might think this is a graph about missed temperature projections, but you would be wrong – this is a graph about epic failures! Seriously, i’m supposed to put my faith in a “science” with this kind of record of repeated failures? If my financial adviser was this awesome there’s no telling how rich i would be!

Where is the “science” in this mess? Well, you have to remember the scientific principle of reproducibility. Considering these climate “scientists” have all done an outstanding job of reproducing failure, maybe this is how they justify calling what they do a science. The science of failure. Bravo.

At this juncture i really begin to wonder how it is that so many scientists allegedly believe in man-made global warming. The previous paragraph about reproducing failure as a scientific method was meant as a joke, but there is a serious truth in that joke. How many times must a theory fail before it’s abandoned? How could so many continue to believe in so many failures?

Which leads me to my next question . . .

What percentage of scientists believe global warming is human-caused?

One of the most often quoted statistics is, “97% of scientists agree global warming is real.” But is this statistic real? Where did this “97%” figure come from?

This statistic comes from The Consensus Project (http://www.theconsensusproject.com/). They have a catchy little logo to go with their claim. Take a look and pay attention to the small print between the headlines:

Note the small print: “… of published climate papers with a position on human-caused global warming …”

So let me get this straight. If 1,000,000 climate papers are published but only 100 of these papers expresses an opinion on human-caused global warming, and 97 of those 100 papers agree humans are causing global warming – we can say 97% of scientists agree? This is what passes for scientific research? What if only 1 paper out of 1 million expressed an opinion in favor of global warming? Could we then say “100% of scientists agree?”

My example might sound blown out of proportion, but the truth is not too far off. The truth is, 11,944 climate papers were published. Of those papers, only 41 explicitly stated that humans caused most of the warming since 1950.[10]

Here is some science for you: My calculator says 41 papers out of 11,944 papers is 0.34%!

That’s right, the headline should be “0.34% of scientists explicitly stated they believe global warming is human-caused.”

Then I saw this statistical masterpiece posted on Facebook recently[11]:

Wow. So, who ever doesn’t explicitly disagree with the theory, is in agreement with the theory? Really? Am i reading this right?

With this logic, if you don’t explicitly tell me not to mug you, you want me to mug you?

What level of dishonesty have global warming alarmists reached when they assume scientists believe what they (the scientists) have neither said nor written?

Like this:

15 responses

You may dismiss Mann if you like. But the reconstructions mentioned in the link I gave you also include Ljungqvist . And here is a quotation from the abstract of his 2010 article:
“…Decadal mean temperatures seem to have reached or exceeded the 1961–1990 mean temperature level during substantial parts of the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period. The temperature of the last two decades, however, is possibly higher than during any previous time in the past two millennia, although this is only seen in the instrumental temperature data and not in the multi-proxy reconstruction itself. Our temperature reconstruction agrees well with the reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008)…”
Would the real mr Ljungqvist please stand up?
The link referring to the CO2-science website gives a lot of articles about reconstructing Antarctic climate. I will try to summarize (correct me if I’m wrong). They point to a substantial warm period between 600 and 900 years ago. Some articles say that the reconstructed temperature in that period in the antarctic was equal to or a bit higher than it is now. Then somewhere a remark of the CO2-science editor that the CO2-levels were 100 ppm lower than they are today so the whole idea of AGW is nonsense….
Firstly: Temperature reconstructions for the past two millennia (some a bit shorter) of Antartctica, South- and North-America, Greenland, Europe, Asia and Australia have been brought together by the PAGES 2k network. (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/abs/ngeo1797.html 2013; unfortunately you have to pay for the full text, but I’ll give you the main conclusions) Several of the abovementioned articles about Antarctica have been used in this overview. One of the conclusions is (a bit simplified by me) that the MWP in the northern hemisphere preceded the MWP in the Southern hemisphere. The northern MWP fell roughly between 900 and 1100 (at the height of the Viking period) while the Southern MWP was between 1100 and 1400. They did not coïncide, so anyone trying to calculate a global average temperature somewhere between 900 and 1400 will not reach the levels we find today.
Secondly: the Southern hemisphere temerature change falls behind about .3 °C the global average today. Understandably it does, because the oceans slow down any warming. So Antarctica at its height in its MWP may well be comparable with Antarctica today. But that’s no measure for the GLOBAL temperature.
Thirdly: This silly argument again. “If temperatures were that high in the past with lower CO2 concentrations (or vice versa) , higher levels of CO2 can’t be responsible for the present warming. ”
Climate can change by the Sun’s activity, by changing milankovich parameters, shifting continents substantial shifts in vegetation, volcanic activity AND by changing atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses.
What could have caused the MWP’s ? Not the levels of CO2, as far as the ice-cores can tell. Not the factors that take tens of thousands or millions of years to change. Was it the sun, or volcanoes? We now know from 10-Be-measurements) that indeed the sun was more active roughly in that period. Also the volcanic activity seems to have been less than average.
Now what may have caused the recent warming? It could be the 50% extra CO2 ( as predicted 120 years ago); or maybe the sun again; or less volcanism. We dont have to reconstruct anything fortunately, because we can measure all factors directly. And then we see that the sun’s activity did rise in the first half of the 20th century, volcanic activity was lower than average in the same period.
But in the second half the suns activity stabilized and even fell back a little. And volcanos came back on the track. Still the steepest rise in atmospheric temperature was in the last 40 years.
(not to mention the greenhouse “fingerprint” of the stratospheric temperature drop).
The whole discussion on Climate Change has drifted away from scienticfic issues to political and ad hominem issues. So I don’t like Cook and Nutticelli presenting their 97%. I don’t like all kinds of attempts to discredit scientists from neither side. And I won’t start about who started that.

AR1 page 202: “schematic diagram”. No temperatures along the y-axis. And the comment that “it is still not clear whether all the fluctuations indicated were truly global”. Also the mention that the MCO was exceptionally warm in western europe Iceland and greenland, but china f.i. was colder then usual. All based on historical sources — not reconstructions based on proxy’s. Those came later. The hockeystick — based solely on tree-rings — was the first. Now we have much more reconstructions based on much more available proxys. They all show rouhgly the same pattern:http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/progress-in-millennial-reconstructions/
(And they show that the hockeystick wasn’t so bad after all)
So the AR1 graph was NOT a “record” at all. The IPCC does not “struggle”, there have been a number of reconstructions the last decade, that show that the AR1 is not an accurate representation at all. And the present temperatures ARE higher than the MWP, they even are coming close to the holocene maximum. No climate scientist is ignoring the paleoclimatic record. In fact they make a great effort in reconstructing it, because it gives them more insight in how the climate-system works.

Proxy reconstructions and climate modelling are two completely different things. Why mixing them up?
If you are looking for the data record behind the reconstructions: they are not hidden:http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/supplements/MultiproxyMeans07/
Past climate variables include the sun (which is carefully monitored and always taken into consideration) the milankovich variations, continental drift, biological feedbacks (removing CO2, changing the albedo etc.) Which one do you think is applicable for a temperature change in a timespan of about one century?
You may think that the rise in tropospheric temperature is insignificant (I disagree, looking at the paleoclimatic record 1 °C in 100 yrs is not insignificant), but the point was that we see the stratosphere doing the exact opposite, which means that you can rule out external causes.
You keep hammering on the fact that the “record” never goes further back than 1860. Of course the instrumental record is meant here. No one will suggest that it has never been warmer before. It has. Not in the MWP, but possibly in the holocene maximum, certainly in some of the interglacials and it was much warmer most of the time if you go back millions of years. And we may expect based on the milankovich parameters that we will slowly slide into an ice age again some 20.000 years from now.
The concern is not about the changes in temperature per se, but about the PACE in which these changes take place. That is unprecedented, as far as we can tell from the paleoclimatic record. And that same record tells us that the climate can be unstable. We could be playing with fire.

I’m very disappointed to see you using those same old graphs and arguments again. The graph of the AR1 with the MWP you seem to interpret as the latest en best info on temperature about the last 1000 years. It was meant to be no more than a rough sketch. A large number of more reliable reconstructions are available now (cf. AR4 or 5), that show a much less pronounced MWP, lower than most recent temperatures. The latest graph you show (back to 550 Ma) appears to contradict the idea that CO2 could have anything to do with temperature. But it doesn’t. You don’t mention the fact that 550M years ago the sun was about 6% fainter than it is now. Combining the two (sun and CO2) gives a fair correspondence, as you can find out in the scientific article which was the original source of this graph.
In summary: the present temperatures are the highest for a couple of thousand years ago; there have been higher temperatures in the further past, but the latest rise in temperature is a clear trendbreak turning a slow 8000 yr decline (with some bumps) into a rapid increase.
Manmade or natural? First of all. The rise in tropospheric temperature of the latest 40 yrs goes with a decline in stratospheric temperature. This shows that the extra heat comes from within, not from external causes like the sun — which didn’t show any increase in energy-output anyway in that period.
It is an undisputed fact (by scientists, including the skeptics) that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas and that an increase in CO2 will lead to more heat trapped in the earth system, and to a rise in temperature. (120 years ago climate scientist Arrhenius already predicted that increasing the amount of CO2 would lead to a temperature rise). [PLease don’t come with the “800 year lag”-argument. It only shows that CO2 is not the only player in the climate game (no one ever said so) and that it can act as a feedback as well as a forcing]
There is legitimate scientific discussion about how much the temperature will rise given a certain increase in CO2; and about the consequences this may have. There is still much unknown about possible feedbacks, both positive and negative. But the issues you raise are unscientific and you could have known that if you took the trouble to dig a bit further in the subject.

>>>The graph of the AR1 with the MWP you seem to interpret as the latest en best info on temperature about the last 1000 years.<<<

Is that what i said? No. I use the graph for two reasons:

Using the IPCC as a source puts global warming reality deniers in the position of having to explain why their beloved IPCC has been changing, manipulating, reinterpreting and modifying temperature history over the past 2000 years to fit their 21st century global warming alarmism screed.

Despite the discredited hockey shtick (which the IPCC has since stopped using) and subsequent hockey shtick knockoff types of temperature history manipulations, this IS an accurate representation of temperatures over the past 2000 years.

I understand why global warming reality deniers would like to deny this reality and it explains why “the record” begins in the year 1860.

>>>It was meant to be no more than a rough sketch.<<<

No, it wasn’t. It was the accepted temperature record by scientists on all sides of the issue until the thoroughly discredited hockey shtick (which the IPCC has since stopped using) surfaced in 1998. The IPCC struggles to this day to find a credible replacement for the hockey shtick.

>>>A large number of more reliable reconstructions are available<<<

Are they more reliable than all the climate models that didn’t predict the last 17 years of temperature stagnation? These so-called “more reliable reconstructions” are just as controversial as the discredited hockey shtick. It becomes harder to consider them “more reliable” when the “scientists” hawking these reconstructions refuse to release their methods and their data. We all know how real science likes to hide their data and methods – it makes for more credibility.

Scientific standards demands all sides of this issue release their data and methods for peer review by anybody who wishes to analyze the data.

>>>You don’t mention the fact that 550M years ago the sun was about …<<<

I appreciate your willingness to engage in a discussion of the earths climate from millions of years ago. This squares up with my question of why climate “scientists” don’t make ANY effort to explain why past climate variables are inapplicable to the past 110 years.

I keep hearing humans are 95% responsible for the climate change since 1950. On its face, it is ABSURD to assert that the natural forces that have been in play for billions of years of earth’s climate are suddenly reduced to being only 5% responsible for the past 60 years of climate. Humans, powerful they are!

Climate “scientists” unwillingness to discuss anything beyond the the year 1860 is one of my reasons for being skeptical and your willingness to go back beyond the year 1860 is a sign of hope.

>>>In summary: the present temperatures are the highest for a couple of thousand years ago<<<

No, the MWP was warmer than any temperatures since 1860.

Even if, as you assert, the MWP wasn’t warmer than today, then the MWP would simply be a small part of the downward trend in temperatures over the last 10,000 years – a period where 90% of temperatures were higher than any temperatures since 1860 (the “record”).

>>>The rise in tropospheric temperature<<<

How much of a rise? A statistically insignificant amount over the past 13 years – a trend not seen since the early 1970s. Certainly much, MUCH lower than the “science” models predicted. Another example of “science” reliably reproducing failure.

>>>It is an undisputed fact (by scientists, including the skeptics) that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas and that an increase in CO2 will lead to more heat trapped in the earth system, and to a rise in temperature.<<<

Did you read my piece? I don’t know of anybody disputing the warming properties of CO2. It’s the follow-up questions to this fact that makes people skeptical of the apocalyptic predictions made by global warming reality deniers.

The CO2 effect on temperature is a case of diminishing return. At some level of CO2 there is no correlating rise in temperature. What is that CO2 level? The earth had periods of CO2 concentrations greater than 5000 PPM, yet earth’s temperatures didn’t spiral out of control as alarmists are warning us will happen while current levels are only 400 PPM.

What natural forces controlled CO2 levels before 1860 and why don’t those forces apply today (we’re told human activity is responsible for 95% of any warming since 1950)(i.e. nature is only 5% responsible for any warming since 1950)?

Point is, it’s not strictly the science of CO2, it’s all the other variables nobody can explain or accurately model and reproduce that keeps me skeptical.

>>>There is legitimate scientific discussion about how much the temperature will rise given a certain increase in CO2; and about the consequences this may have.<<<

I disagree when you say there is a “legitimate” scientific discussion. Something as basic as my point of climate science limiting “the record” to only those years since 1860 makes any “scientific discussion” illegitimate. Since when does “science” ignore millions of years of available data? It reeks more of creationists ignoring all those years of history before the old testament because the information could undermine their creationist beliefs.

>>>There is still much unknown about possible feedbacks, both positive and negative. But the issues you raise are unscientific>>>

Asking millions of years of climate data be brought into the discussion is unscientific? Regardless of what those millions of years of data say, ignoring that data is unscientific, the inclusion of that data WOULD BE scientific.

>>>and you could have known that if you took the trouble to dig a bit further in the subject.<<<

You’re making my argument. Climate “scientists” are the one that need to dig further into the subject. It’s the climate “scientists” limiting their analysis to a statistically insignificant number of earth years.

>>>There is still much unknown about possible feedbacks<<<

Are you opposing my views or supporting them?

My point exactly. This is why forecasts and hindcasts fail so miserably – repeatedly – and a reason for my continued skepticism.

Yet with so many unknowns and so many millions of years of climate variables not understood or being ignored, we’re being fed apocalyptic climate alarmism and being told ridiculous narratives like nature is only responsible for 5% of warming since 1950.

You say you are skeptical that humans are causing warming. The only way to believe this is to *not* believe in basic physics. Radiative forcing and the effects of GHGs are well-known and have been understood for more than a century. If you accept that the physics is correct, then you know that adding GHGs to the atmosphere *has* to increase planetary warming. It is this basic fact that actually makes you a denier – not skeptic.

Which climate models predicted the last 17 years of no warming? Being such a settled science, surely there are climate models that predicted the last 17 years of no warming – even though CO2 levels have continued to climb.

My articles didn’t even raise the question of weather aftcasting. No climate models can accurately aftcast past warming and cooling.

My point is, we don’t understand all the variables at work. The earth has had periods of 5,000 ppm of CO2 while the earth was covered with ice.

Recognizing the properties of CO2 is a small part of a greater puzzle we don’t yet understand.

For Global Records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.

Though humans love record-breakers, they don’t, on their own, tell us a much about trends — and it’s trends that matter when monitoring Climate Change. Trends only appear by looking at all the data, globally, and taking into account other variables — like the effects of the El Nino ocean current or sunspot activity — not by cherry-picking single points.

1998, the year I assume you are speaking of, was known for having an unusually hot El Nino event. In recent years, including the record breakers, there has been normal El Nino activity and a lack of solar activity.

There’s also a tendency for some people just to concentrate on surface air temperatures when there are other, more useful, indicators that can give us a better idea how rapidly the world is warming. Oceans for instance — due to their immense size and heat storing capability (called ‘thermal mass’) — tend to give a much more ‘steady’ indication of the warming that is happening. Records show that the Earth has been warming at a steady rate before and since 1998 and there is no sign of it slowing any time soon. More than 90% of global warming heat goes into warming the oceans, while less than 3% goes into increasing the surface air temperature.

Today’s temperatures are certainly not hotter than during the medieval warm period 700 years ago. In fact, today’s temperatures are the coolest they’ve been in the last 8,000 years.

A prime difference between a theory and “science” is reproducibility. Climate change advocates don’t have reproducible results.

However you wish to interpret the last 17 years, the fact is, climate models have utterly failed to predict the last 15 or so years of temperature stagnation. Forget aftcasting. Even knowing past temperatures and CO2 levels, there isn’t a climate model that can go back and duplicate known temperatures and CO2 levels from the past. How can this be if it’s such a “science”?

I get the science of so-called green house gases. But i liken a scientist (who understands the scientific properties of greenhouse gases) making weather predictions to a metallurgist (who understands the physical and chemical behaviors of metals and alloys) being an engine builder. Understanding the pieces doesn’t automatically translate into an understanding of the bigger picture.

Climate is an average over (at least) 30 yrs. Expecting the temperature rise to be a smooth way “upwards” is rather naïve. On the long-term trend you may expect mostly unpredictable “noise”, due to ENSO variations, the solar-cycle, volcanoes, and last but not least the still poorly understood heat exchange between oceans and atmosphere. Now let’s look at the 5 year mean since 1970. We’ve seen periods of stagnation in the early ’80’s, the early ’90’s and the second half of the last decade. Anyone who focusses on 1997 or 1998 — peaking almost .2 centigrade above the trend caused by a huge El Nino — as a startingpoint is a bit suspicious or ill-informed, and so is expecting a model to predict the unpredictable noise

Why not 1,000 years? Why do climate “scientists” limit their “record” to a time frame beginning in 1860? Any data observed in a 110 year period is a worthless datapoint on earth’s geological timeline.

>>>Expecting the temperature rise to be a smooth way “upwards” is rather naïve.<<<

It would naïve to assume this is my belief or expectation. I don’t claim higher CO2 levels always, necessarily, leads to higher temperatures. This is the type of assertion Al Gore was making for two decades from 1979 – 1999 when temperatures did seem to be rising steadily in concert with a steady increase in CO2 levels.

I’m arguing earth’s history is replete with periods that contradict this assertion of a direct and unmitigated relationship between CO2 levels and temperatures. Most recently, the last 15 years of temperature stagnation. A little further back is the period from 1938 to 1978 when temperatures declined while the industrial age was kicking into high gear. Go back to a time before the beginning of “the record” (1860) and the CO2/temperature contradictions continue.

Again, why don’t climate “scientists” go back before 1860?

>>>and so is expecting a model to predict the unpredictable noise<<<

I’m not sure if you’re supporting or opposing my beliefs.

The idea of not being able to accurately model the climate is another sticking point for me. I’d estimate better than 95% of climate models failed to predict the last 17 years of temperature stagnation. Weather is the only "science" i know that doesn’t need to meet the burden of reproducible results yet still be called a “science.”

Forget hindcasting. Even knowing past temperature and CO2 levels, there isn’t a climate model that can accurately replicate past climates. It's all very scientific.

The only thing reproducible about climate “science” are the reproducible failures.

The 30 years is a matter of definition. When you read: this month’s temperature has been 1.3 degrees above average”, they mean the average over the last 30 years. My point is that it is not really honest to start 17 years back. 17 years back we had a huge peak caused by an extraordinairy strong El Nino, almost .2 degrees above the average by then. Now we have had two years 2005 and 2010 slightly above that level, but all years since 1997 have had temperatures .1 to .2 degrees above the trend at the time of 1997 in spite of overall La Nina conditions prevailing since then and a declining solar activity. The TREND has continued to rise until about 2005. Since then the trend flattened, as it did in the early ’80’s and ’90’s. You can’t predict the ENSO in a model; you can’t predict the fluctuations in solar activity; you can’t predict volcanic eruptions. These and other effects give a bandwith of about .4 degrees (+/- .2) in yearly averaged temperatures.
The case of the “stagnation” between 1940 and 1980 is probably a nice example of “a medal having two sides”. First of all, the rise from 1910 to 1940 can be explained by three things: increasing solar activity, a below-average volcanic activity and a rising level of CO2. Then we took over the volcanoes by ejecting increasing amounts of sulphuric aerosols assiociated with burning coal and other fossil fuels (think of the huge smog problems in the ’50’s). Among climate scientists a discussion rose which one would win: the heating effect of CO2 or the cooling effect of the sulphuric aerosols. After 1970 we became more and more aware of environmental issues like air pollution and all kinds of measures were taken to clean the air. Ironically the benefits of a cleaner air also cleared the way for CO2 to take over, and since then we’ve seen slightly less solar activity, a bit more volcanic activity and a steep rise in temperature.

>>>AR1 page 202: “schematic diagram”. No temperatures along the y-axis.<<<

Unless there is something in the climatic science definition handbook that i’m not aware of, it looks like a case of semantics when you equate “schematic diagram” with a belief not deeply held. No temperatures along the y-axis is something i’ve done myself when making relative comparisons.

The IPCC carried the MWP torch right up to the end of the 1990s when Mann’s discredited hockey shtick popped up. Interestingly, the Mann hockey shtick is no longer used by the IPCC even though it wasn’t originally called a “schematic diagram.”

My point being, it wasn’t a rough sketch. It was a held belief then and scientific inquiries since then continue to support not only the the original schematic diagram but that it was beyond a regional blip. I try to avoid link wars, but here is a quick link from April 2013: http://tinyurl.com/ahatwz (co2science).

Besides, can’t they hindcast back 1,000 years to see what it was? My attempt at humor highlights one of my ongoing bones of contention with this “science” – the inability to hindcast with reproducible accuracy.

I try to not dismiss sources out of hand, but given Michael Mann is one of the authors at realclimate, i have a hard time relying on Mann to validate the work of Mann. (Mann has become a nightmare for the global warming activists – especially given his latest legal wranglings. I predict he will eventually be excommunicated by the global warming community and shipped to Siberia.)

As i mentioned above, “studies … have found evidence for the Medieval Warm Period in a region that is as far away from lands bordering on the North Atlantic Ocean as one could possibly get, i.e., Antarctica.” (http://tinyurl.com/ahatwz)

“The presently available palaeotemperature proxy data records do not support the assumption that late 20th century temperatures exceeded those of the MWP in most regions, although it is clear that the temperatures of the last few decades exceed those of any multidecadal period in the last 700–800 years. Previous conclusions (e.g., IPCC, 2007) in the opposite direction have either been based on too few proxy records or been based on instrumental temperatures spliced to the proxy reconstructions.” (Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Stockholm University, Sweden, circa 2010) (PDF: Full report: http://tinyurl.com/38kxl4b)

My point is not to persuade you of 100% of anything. People ask me why i’m a skeptic and this is just another one of those reasons – if nobody even knows the last 1,000 year period with certainty, to what are we comparing the present to justify cataclysmic alarm bells? The little ice age? Nothing distorted looking through THAT lens.

I’m out of time. Got a dental appointment.

Closing thoughts:

Science is about reproducibility. I don’t see much about this “science” that is reliably reproducible, especially in the form of forecasts and hindcasts.

Why don’t the “scientists” endorsing the AGW theory release the data upon which their conclusions are based? Mann and Cook immediately come to mind:

Mann comes out with the hockey shtick. When his shtick is criticized he decides to sue a few of his critics for defamataion/libel/slander. Okay, fair enough. But during the discovery process, when the defendants demanded copies of Mann’s data in order to prepare for their defense against his charges, Mann petitions the court to NOT RELEASE HIS DATA. This is science as a religion, an unquestionable faith. “Thou shalt not take the name of thy science in vain.”

Then there is the John Cook study from 2013 which found a 97% consensus among scientists. It all sounded good until details of his methodology and data were uncovered. At a minimum, within his own study, table 3, it shows less than 33% of the climate studies he looked at endorsed AGW (I wrote about it here: http://tinyurl.com/oxb6buw). This is what he had in his own study based on his own opinion of what the climate studies said – no interpretation needed – his own words.

For the sake of argument, i will agree to John Cook’s figure of 32.6% of climate papers endorsing AGW. Why did he have to play semantics with his own results to declare his 97% figure? Why the lie? Now, like Mann, John Cook and his University (the University of Queensland in Australia) are now threatening lawsuits against anybody who uses his data as part of any kind of scientific rebuttal to the study (I write more about that at the same link above). What kind of science is THIS?

As a wise person once said to me, “sometimes things become conspicuous my their absence.”

There are many factors to consider in the climate change debate. My current understanding is it’s happening partly due to a natural cycle but accelerated by anthropogenic influences. The points you made are valid. Skewing the results of surveys or analysing data in a certain way to highlight a point is a marketing trick played universally around the world because it works. The sceptic in me is thinking, what are the motives behind doing skewing? What do they have to gain by trying to convince people that climate change and global warming are happening? A first thought might be to point the finger at financial gain. But it seems like there is more to gain by not believing. Not saying there won’t be a financial gain by moving to technologies to reduce carbon output but there are massive amounts of money to be made by keeping the status quo. So is it a battle between the two competing technologies? And what will be the consequence of ditching the reliance on unstainable fossil fuels? A more sustainable future with a cleaner/healthier planet. Why is that a bad thing?
Humans are a quirky bunch. Unless there are some immediate consequences from our actions, we are reluctant to make a change. Also, we like to keep our lifestyles as they are and will try and work a way around to make sure we can continue. Jerry Seinfeld made a funny point along these lines using the invention of a helmet as an example. Instead of not doing the things that can injure our heads, we invent a helmet so we can continue doing the dangerous activities and minimize the damage. There is no denying that continuing to rely on dirty technologies is an unhealthy outcome for everyone. If skewing some data to motivate people to make a change works, then I’m all for it.